Minneapolis Budgets $400,000 for Police Body Cameras

Technology will help combat alleged police misconduct settlements, estimated by one news story to cost the city nearly $14 million between 2006 and 2012.

Implementation of police body cameras were among budget proposals approved by the Minneapolis City Council last week, according to an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Budget Committee Chair and Mayor-Elect Betsy Hodges' proposal sets aside $400,000 to pay for police body cameras. The issue came up during the mayoral campaign, when the technology was promoted partly to combat alleged police misconduct settlements, estimated to have cost the city nearly $14 million between 2006 and 2012. The full program is expected to eventually cost $650,000 and the initial funding would represent the first phase of a scaled implementation.

A motion to take $166,000 budgeted for extra 311 hours, and use it to pay for two more 911 employees was tabled. The city reported that this past summer, 81 percent of 911 calls were answered within 10 seconds while the national benchmark is 90 percent.

The committee will hold a public hearing and adopt the approximately $1.1 billion budget on Dec. 11.